Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/277

Rh of indulging in—though he did not say so.

He allowed his silence to say it for him.

"Well, I 'm not going to spend all my time over a cook stove," Hetty protested.

"Leave the kitchen to me," her mother said, "an' don't be talkin' nonsinse. We c'u'd live on Fif' Avenuh fer the price of a servan' gurl."

"Well, then," Hetty said, "let us send out the washing."

"What!" the mother cried. "Pay some one fer tearin' yer clothes to pieces? I 'd as soon have a cook bringin' me on grub that I did n't know what she 'd been puttin' into it. What 's the good o' havin' purty clothes if yuh 're never to have the fun o' washin' an' ironin' 'em? I never heard such like talk. What 's got into yuh at all, gurl?"

A feeling that she was useless in her own house—that was what had got into her. She had looked forward to having a little home in which she and Bailey might be happy and alone together. She had expected her mother, if she joined them, to take her place as a visitor and grow old in idleness. Instead of that, Mrs. Joliffe had furnished the flat to her own taste and was running it to her own satisfaction. She had made herself more necessary to Bailey than his own wife. And the girl's attempts to supplant her with a servant only established her more securely in the kitchen; for Hetty maintained her determination not to work there at all, and Mrs. Joliffe ruled unchallenged.

When Hetty claimed the right to do the shopping,